Joanna Newsom – ’81 [play] [buy]

I love this piece most of all, because my 1.5 year old daughter loves this song.  When it comes on the daily playlist, she gets up and starts dancing with her hands, and I pick her up and we waltz around the living room until it ends.  If its nighttime, she will put her head on my shoulder by the end and let herself get sleepy.  She’s a wonder, and so it this song.

So enjoy, its been a while since I’ve been inspired enough to share anything.

(Also, I’ve left all the mother’s day spam comments cause its rather clever stuff, as far as spam goes.)

When Rachmaninoff saw this painting in Paris, he was so inspired that he wrote a whole musical story around it. I find both pieces impressive, and I’m surprised that no filmmaker has yet been inspired enough to further the cycle with a proper film to accompany the music.

Keep listening, because the composer seems to delight in upping the ante each time the dramatic part comes back around. For me, its the quiet parts in the middle that intrigue me the most. Its like a woman in a white dress padding barefoot through the stone courtyards, just out of reach. The goal of the journey, but left behind as the piece ends. Beautiful.

What I love most about music is it’s ability to surprise you with its changes. A seemingly peaceful song can evolve into a frantic mess, or a major chord can give way to the melancholy of a minor note, drawn out.

It shows talent and understanding in the artist when such moments occur.  It is the hallmark of a great producer when not only the melody startles, but also the sound itself.

The producer of this song, (Chris Taylor,) must be great indeed, for I find myself cheering (as I sometimes do when a moment delights me,) not once, but several times!

Grizzly Bear – Little Brother[play] [buy]

Photo by Gaetan Lee.

A simple introduction with guitar.

Then a chord with flutes and strings?

Alright, back to normal, though the flute sticks around. Vocals come in, and… A Banjo? Neat.

Things are moving along well, Its an oddly paced song…

WHAT?!!!

What is that, a metal sheet? Clapping? And a chorus of voices! Whoah.

And then a pleasant part edging into a Beach Boys sort of moment (maybe a little Beatles too). The mood has changed, and the drums bring it along (there’s also a lot of weirdness going on in the background).

Oh, and then we’re back again. The main song remains. We don’t go back to the clapping/crashing, but even the memory makes one smile. And it seems like we’re ending on the happy note, but NO!

More song! Multiple voices, blending with the guitars, shuffling drums. Then–

Birds, and an organ, helping the guitar finish the song with an entirely new part. And I love love the voices here.

So strange and wonderful, I couldn’t help wishing for more.

As I write this, I am sitting in the back right corner of a metro bus, typing poorly on my iPhone and watching the auto-correct fix all my mistakes so that you, dear reader, will never know how clumsy my thumbs are.

I’m listening to Mr. Tom Waits, his album Alice to be specific. And it’s good to be specific. The album tells stories from a world gone wrong. It’s like Alice grew up, and Wonderland soured as she was exposed to the awful Earth, and then, as the album begins, she dies, and is at last returned to that strange Land, now twisted, but not at all beyond recognition. No, its horribly familiar.

I am sitting right next to the window, and I see that a similar decomposition is happening in Los Angeles.

The bus is crowded with Americans, all pretending to be so tough and strong. Only one in twenty has the courage to look you in the eye. But maybe of isn’t a lack of courage, only a lack of a shot to give.

The comparison between the denizens of post-mortum Wonderland and pre-Fall L.A. grows stronger: both have resigned themselves to their fates, and whatever face we put on it (for I belong here too,) we refuse to lift our heads and change our world.

It’s all the fault of Alice.

This week is a band I found via a recommendation on Last.fm, sent by the artist himself, one Soren Bonke. I was unsure of what I thought until the third song, and then I was hooked. Click on the Free! link when you’re done, the EP is worth your time.

Klak Tik – Zeitgeber[play] [free!]

Photo by Yenvious.

So, it starts off in a fairly familiar fashion, but it gets to the point and adds in drums soon after. From then on, its a strange carriage ride through a german town, one ill-prepared for the carnival that approaches in a storm from the southwest (france). The townspeople don’t understand the gentle man that paces rhythmically through their streets, handing out candy and paper-dolls.

But his unrelenting kindness holds them at bay, keeping both him and his goods from the witch-fire for the time being (though I think we all know, its only a matter of time.)

Grizzly Bear – Marla[play] [buy]

Photo by Yenvious.

Creaks and the Wind, then guitar and piano entering together, blending in like ghosts in the parlour.  The vocals are just as ghost like, trippled between two octaves and a third sung through a horn (or a cupped hand).  Either way, the lyrics are blurred as if you were watching the scene through frosted glass.  The strings throw us into a whole new direction.  I love the song, and each stanza throws in new instruments, new arangements, new tonality, until we’re back where we started, with a little more back story than before.

She’s looked everywhere for the blerdeblahd, and you know, propriety dictates that you can’t possibly leave this house without your blerdeblahd.  Stay inside where its warm, with your dear old Marla.

Wow.

That was the catching point for me, and once I wore that record out, I returned to the rest of the Waits catalog. Swordfishtrombones was a treat and Rain Dogs was the same. The first track off of Rain Dogs is my favorite, and is perhaps a good indicator of the unique music that is Tom Waits.

Tom Waits – Singapore[play] [buy]

Do you see why I like this? The atonal guitars, the smoke-riddled throat of the singer, the general clacky-bones sounds, they all swirl around your head and draw you into that Tom Waits world of rusting metal shopfronts, one-eyed dwarf captains, and red light streaming from every window. Far from polite society, not so far from the grave, this world is dirty and full of regrets, yet each soul is fixated on the present in a way that only sailors and lovers generally are. Rough and tumble they may be, but one can forgive them this since they’re bold enough to travel to Singapore and return with the silks and spices we Nobles can’t seem to live without.

Away, boys.

But they are highly influential in my understanding of the limits of music and of the past. I won’t give you a full taste of their truly odd style, but this song is just on that edge. Never forget that this is the band that brought us such songs as Dachau Blues, Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish, and Ice Cream for Crow.

Captain Beefheart – Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles[play] [buy]

So pretty, starting smack from the first note, even in 4/4 its confusing. The music feels like a long hard look into the eyes of your lover, when you’re fully aware that things aren’t going well, and though she says she loves you, her eyes stare at you with the cold indifference that the ocean has, and she’s a million miles away.

Oh, wait, that’s exactly what the lyrics are saying… Well, that means the music and lyrics work together! How novel!

But its beautiful, isn’t it.

One. I’m choosing to name the next several articles by the Band they’re about. This one is called Inkuyo.

Two. I’m also writing these in the order they will be displayed on this page: ie, if you were to read this post before The Acorn post. Backwards in time.

Lets’ dig in:

Inkuyo – Wipala[play] [buy]

After having been thoroughly amazed by Baraka, I dug deeper into the film’s soundtrack. Looking through the credits yielded many interesting bands and sounds, including Dead Can Dance, but one sequence in particular intrigued me enough to dig deeper.

Photo by GatoAzul.

Acoustic guitar and pan-pipes played over images of children playing in over-expanded slums, beautiful and somehow separate from the modern world. The music transported the children away from the awful reality and into their own imaginations, flying kites, running in circles, and watching the people pass by. I needed to find that song, and I did. Inkuyo.

I actually bought the CD in a store, something I hardly ever do, but so excited was I to hear what else this band could do. And I was so impressed. The liner notes describe the band as almost-archaeologists, a group of scientists trying to reproduce the sounds of the Incans. And you know what?

They succeed. I believe them.

Here’s one more song for your pleasure:

Inkuyo – El Carnival